Natural birth

[Weirdbigtoe]

What is classed as a natural birth-is it vaginal birth with no pain relief at all?
I had a vaginal birth, but requested epidural. My mum to this day still asks why, I can’t remember being massively informed at the time, but just basically not wanting any pain, is this weird? It seems incredulous to my mum. It wouldn’t have affected my Dd would it?
Where I am they don’t have gas & air, the only option was epidural or not, hence why I went for it, if they had gas and air I would have had that

It felt like a prize to me. I didn't feel unlucky either, it's exactly what I wanted.

It was bliss and relief.

I had two ‘natural births’. As in no pain relief whatsoever.

The first was a definite mistake. I was a mad young hippy and thought that just being in water would be enough. How very wrong I was.

The second time, I had in my birth plan to accept any drugs they’d give me. Definitely keen on the diamorphine idea, hadn’t ruled out epidural. As it turned out, I got no free drugs at all, because there weren’t any midwives available so I was left to my own devices. Didn’t even get the water that time, and by the time I got a midwife I had 10 mins of pushing then a baby. So another fucking natural birth.

My point is, natural births aren’t fun at all, so you haven’t missed out on anything.

I've always thought natural birth was just a general term people use who don't want to say vaginal!

I've had an induced vaginal birth with gas&air with my first baby. I had an unmedicated home birth with my second baby (not by choice, she came too quickly!). I'm incredibly proud of both births, as anyone who has given birth should be!

I didn’t want any type of medication so I felt lucky that I didn’t need it.

Not quite sure what your point is? Surely we’re both in the same position of being happy with the births we had?

Ughhh I hate this term when used instead of vaginal birth. It’s vaginal birth or abdominal birth to talk about the two specific type of deliveries.

‘Natural’ birth for me would mean absolutely no pain relief (medical) at all.

Give it 5 years or so and nobody will give a fuck,

I had one 'vaginal' both with all the drugs in the world, and one elective C-section. They are now 18 and 17 and would rather throw themselves in front of a bus than discuss how they were born lol

Hate the term natural birth. I think it's really unhelpful elevating different 'natural' births. As long as baby comes out and mum doesn't suffer ill effects from the birth it a win

Next time your mum gets something done at the dentist ask if she had an anaesthetic, and ask her why.

So strange to me why anyone would care what pain relief someone else had during labour. No one would ever ask what pain relief someone got for a broken arm or surgery and the make judgement on it. As long as you and the baby are fine what does it even matter.

Just stop it. It is up to women how they birth, you didn't do something clever, you just had a baby the way you wanted. It isn't a competition and because of this arritude, many women and babies have lost their lives in the UK. Try not to look down on other women for their choices, we are under enough threat already without a civil war.

^ is at the silly smug cow judging and using the anaesthetic conspiracy theory earlier in the thread.

I loved my C-section with mg second. My birth was ‘natural’ as in vaginal and absolute hell. I don’t care about the idea of natural anymore. In fact I was glad to have the most medicalised and controlled option!

But why should you have to "handle" pain when it is optional in 2023 (and has actually been optional for a long time now)?

The idea that you'd choose to suffer hours of contractions rather than a needle in your back for about 30 seconds is wild to me.

"The idea that you'd choose to suffer hours of contractions rather than a needle in your back for about 30 seconds is wild to me."
Other opinions are available. And valid.

A needle in your back over a few hours of contractions (I didn’t suffer) seems wild to me.

How is it so difficult to realise people have different thresholds of pain? Being in the water was actually a natural pain relief for me. I loved that with all my babies I was back home within a few hours. Not everyone wants the same birth as you. I think that may be the whole point of this thread.

Once the anaesthetic is in place you can't feel the needle at all.

I get that not everyone wants the same kind of birth and that's fine.

What I'm saying is that the things women who say they prefer an unmedicated birth say about epidurals are very telling. Firstly, there is an awful lot of what I can only term "fake news" about epidurals being the cause of other interventions such as forceps (as many people have claimed) and causing babies to be born drugged (as one poster on here claimed). These things simply aren't true. So if you are declining pain relief for these reasons, I find it sad and shocking that women are choosing to feel hours of contraction pain rather than take what they think are risks associated with an epidural, when the data doesn't actually support these theories. And secondly, people tend to contract themselves when talking about the pain of natural childbirth. They talk about managing it, or handling it, and then claim that they didn't suffer. If there is anything to manage, or handle, you are feeling pain which means you are suffering at least a little bit. So to me the language people use tells me that there is still a lot of cultural pressure for women to experience pain in childbirth, whether for misogynistic reasons or because the NHS doesn't want to pay for epidurals for everyone, I don't know.

There definitely seems to be a link where I am. Even the medical staff say this. It can also slow down labour generally. But everyone’s different.

A lot of women don’t feel the need for them, especially when they’ve got other things in place. You do feel pretty superhuman afterwards. There’s a reason they’re not given out as routine.
Anyway, there’s a strong chance I’ll need one anyway (especially if my baby is back to back again) but trying to push women to have them is just as bad imo. Everyone experiences birth differently and the power shouldn’t be taken away from the woman.

Who said everyone’s labours are in pain for hours on end.

I talked though my contractions, to the extent midwifes thought I was having braxton hicks not contractions. It hurt more when I stubbed my toe and nearly ripped my nail off tbh. That I’d never do again.

"Where I am" is the key here.

Where you are, are women having straightforward uncomplicated labours encouraged to just manage with some gas and air?

If so, of course there appears to be a correlation, because only women having complicated labours are having epidurals.

This apparent correlation disappears in countries where almost all women have an epidural regardless of whether they are having a straightforward labour or a difficult one.

The reason they aren't given out as routine is because the NHS doesn't want to pay for everyone to have them when women could just manage their pain themselves.

Where I live, they are given out as routine. Which means that if they caused a cascade of interventions you would expect to see a lot more interventions here. It's almost as though that is actually total bullshit designed to dissuade women from demanding proper pain relief in labour.

It’s pretty well known that epidurals increase the need for interventions and you have to be in the delivery suite, which also slows down labour. Read the NHS if you want to. I agree that women shouldn’t be told they’ll need them and won’t be able to cope. We don’t all love pain, as some on here seem to suggest. I would have had a home birth if I could.

https://www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/labour-and-birth/what-happens/pain-relief-in-labour/

Where do you live? That’s really strange to me.

As I've explained above, any data coming from the NHS is going to be automatically unreliable as pretty much all the women having a straightforward labour are excluded from the epidural group as standard.

Do you have research to back it up? As that’s quite an important statement.